


Holding Out for a Hero

by Kittenshift17



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Blood Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, Demons, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Multi, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2020-11-08 23:43:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20843990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenshift17/pseuds/Kittenshift17
Summary: During Willow's Will-Be-Done spell while Spike and Buffy are engaged, Spike drinks some of Buffy's blood, which heals the chip out of his head. De-chipped and in a demonic healing state, Spike returns to killing. When Buffy goes hunting him, she discovers that while she hunts demons, the Initiative have begun hunting her. And evil and a little unhinged with one hell of an axe to grind with the world at large, Big Bad Spike might be the only one who can save her from Professor Walsh and the Initiative's twisted agendas.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Big Bads Challenge of 2019 at Elysian Fields!

Magic was a funny thing. When he found himself reaching for the slender band of metal adorning his pinky finger and sinking to his knees in the middle of the Watcher’s house before the Slayer, Spike was dimly aware of that. One minute he’d been threatening to rip her throat out just as soon as they took the chip out of his head, and the next he was kneeling for the very same girl, offering her the special ring he’d been saving for an important moment and asking her to marry him.

He _knew_ it was magic working on him, he could feel it all the way to where his demon kept his cockles, but he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t control it. Couldn’t help but… feel.

And what he felt was love. Pure, honest-to-darkness love for this wretched and beautiful girl who’d made his life hell since the moment he’d laid eyes on her. He could see the same reflected back at him in her green eyes – eyes that moments before had sparkled with anger and hatred and fury – and no matter the elation the magic induced when she said yes and agreed to marry him, Spike felt a deep sense of foreboding begin to churn through the belly of his demon.

But he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t keep his hands off her. Couldn’t stop loving her.

When the Watcher grew tired of their hungry lip-smacking as Spike snogged her blind and declared he was going to bed for the night and that they had better clear out and find somewhere else to be so disgusting, Spike did as he was heeded.

He wanted her. He needed her. He loved her. And by Darkness, he was going to have her.

“My Mom’s out of town,” she offered breathlessly between kisses as they walked across town. “We could go there. I don’t want to go home and see Willow. She’s too mopey, and I just want to be happy with you. I love you, Spike.”

The foreboding inside him only grew at the purity of her words. Magic might’ve induced the feelings, but they were there. They were real.

“I’d be happy to keep you all to myself, pet,” Spike admitted quietly, his arm looped around her shoulders and holding her against him warmly as they walked.

She squealed and she giggled, and she tugged free of his hold to pull on his hand before she began to run, laughing the whole way. And by the Gods, she could run. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she could outrun him, he reckoned. Hell, she almost did until he caught her as she was crossing the back porch at her mother’s house, where he scooped her up in his arms, cradling her as though she was already his bride and kissing her blind as he carried her across the threshold, uncaring about having to turn the doorknob hard enough to break the lock so as to avoid breaking the moment.

“Upstairs,” Buffy whispered against his lips. “My room. I want to taste all of you.”

Bloody hell, that was the best thing he’d ever heard, and Spike carried her as he kissed her the whole way. He stood her on her feet in the bedroom, but immediately she was on him. Pulling at his clothes, ripping his coat from his shoulders and his shirt off over his head, she even made light work of his belt and his jeans while he toed out of his boots and yanked her shirt off her, too.

Need. He’d never felt anything like it. More than a hundred years, he’d been walking this dimension and he’d never felt something so unadulterated. So hungry. So desperate. He wanted her. He had to have her. They tore out of their clothes until they were just skin on skin and Spike groaned into her mouth at how good all the heat pouring off her Slayer form felt against his own cool flesh.

“God, Buffy, I love you so much,” he said against her neck as she pulled him down on top of her. The bed smelled of her. Like warmth and sunshine and something spritzy that made him think of springtime and new growth. _Life_, he realised as he rolled her under him, his hands smoothing over her long, sinuous lines and tracing every inch of her golden skin.

“I love you too, Spike,” she whispered fervently. “God, I love you too. I need you. I need you now. Inside of me. Forever.”

“Well, I don’t know about forever, pet,” he replied huskily, his fingers gliding between her legs to find her already slick with the need she spoke of, more than ready for him. Hell, it felt like she’d been born ready for him. “But I can make it feel like a lifetime.”

He wanted it to be tender. Taking her for the first time. He wanted it to be magical and special, and all the pretty silly things whispered about in purple prose of romance novels.

But who was he kidding? He was what he was, and no chip in his head could change that. For that matter, she was what she was too. No amount of trying could unmake her as a Slayer; as _the_ Slayer. She was born for strength and violence and death, and nothing she did would ever change that. Though it riled him to think of it, he’d heard in sickening detail about the tender, slow, gentle, careful way Angelus had taken this one when he deflowered her, and how afterward she had cried about wanting it to be special. Magical. A very big deal.

But she wasn’t made for that. _She_ was the big deal around these parts, and something as life-affirming and good-feeling as sex was supposed to be just like every other aspect of her life. A fight. A twisted, glorious coming together of powerful bodies, slamming into one another like destruction was the ultimate goal.

And so, when he slid into her, Spike gave Buffy just a moment to breathe in the glory, because fuck if she didn’t feel like _home_. But then he let that moment end and he held her gaze as he loomed over her, watching her, seeing in her eyes that just like his demon knew there was something whacky here, there was something important, too. Something life-altering, world-shattering, heart-wrenching, and pain-rendering. That one moment was everything he’d chased Drusilla for, everything he’d longed for since long before he’d awoken as a vampire.

He’d found it. He’d held it. And it was glorious. But there was danger too, and there was terror, and there was the unsettling, inevitable sense of _knowing_ that there was no going back from this; that this girl was not one you could take back, undo, forget, or regret, or not long for over and over.

He was fucked. And he knew it. And from the look on her face, she knew it too. But right now, magic dictated that she loved him, and it dictated that he loved her, and so that sense of _knowing_ just felt like happiness boxed and wrapped with pretty red bows for them to enjoy into eternity.

“I love you, Spike,” Buffy whispered against his lips as he drew back and poised, ready to unleash everything in him as he couldn’t ever remember doing before.

“I love you too, Buffy,” he replied. “God, I love you so much. I’ll always love you.”

And when he slammed back in deep and hard, he knew he was home and her moan of delight and the way her eyes fluttered closed told him that she loved that, too. That she wanted it. That she could take it. That she’d been born to take it like this. Her body had been carefully honed to withstand the force of a vampire, and he so loved putting her to the test. Gods, hadn’t he dreamed of this?

Even before their first fight; even before the church-organ, and Angelus, and Drusilla and the truce and Acathla, and the Gem of Amara. Even before he’d ripped her to strips with well-aimed jibes, and battered her bloody with well-landed blows, he’d wanted this. Her warmth. Her soft sighs. Her moans of ecstasy. He’d wanted to feel her writhing under him, to feel her squeezing him, breaking him, raking him to ribbons and making him anew. He had dreamed of it during those long months as he studied her while he tried to find ways to make Dru well enough again.

He relieved his tension long after his Dark Princess had retired for the day, and he’d fantasized about how she would taste.

“God, Spike,” Buffy moaned. “Harder. Please, harder.”

His low chuckle was wicked, but he picked up the pace, the bed frame creaking before it began to grind back and forth across the carpet, the headboard slamming against the wall and rattling the glass of the windows in their panes.

“More,” she begged. “Let me feel you, Spike. I love you so much. Don’t hold back from me. I want all of you. You’re mine and I want you forever.”

His heart soared at the words, and the demon buried within panicked and spluttered and growled and hissed because the soaring heart that so threatened to pound back to life inside his chest wasn’t solely the doing of a wonky spell. Fuck, how long had he longed to hear words like that. How often had he hoped and prayed and begged for Drusilla to want that? Unconditional. Unwavering. Faithful. For all of eternity.

“Bloody hell, girl,” Spike growled, dragging his teeth against the skin of her throat. “I’ll give it all to you. Yours. Forever. As long as your mine.”

“I’m yours, Spike,” Buffy cried out breathlessly. “God, I never want to be anything but yours. You’re inside of me now. Always. I want to be inside of you, too.”

“Fuck,” Spike whispered against her neck, feeling the coiling of magic tighter and tighter around them and elated and terrified and confused and deranged all at once.

“Bite me,” she begged raggedly as she squeezed him tighter, as she splintered beneath him. “Please Spike, bite me. Take me inside of you. Please.”

Bloody hell, but she begged so sweetly, and he wanted her so much. Loved her so much. He could never hurt her. Never turn her. Never kill her. But he could taste her. Bring her inside of him like she wanted. Hold her there forever. Even suspecting it might hurt should the chip in his head fire, Spike couldn’t say no.

“Yeeesssss,” Buffy cried out breathlessly when his fangs burst free and slid tenderly into the soft flesh where her neck joined her shoulder, low enough not to leave marks that Watcher Boy and Joyce might see. Low enough to keep it private, keep it personal, just between the two of them.

Not because he was ashamed, or because he didn’t want to shout it from the rooftops that she was his. But because they wouldn’t understand, and it would cheapen the moment, cheapen the experience if they had to defend it like they already had to defend their love.

Her blood flowed into his mouth like so much ambrosia, and Spike had never known anything like that ecstasy. He drank deep, pulling hard on her vein, drawing her in and loving her more with every taste.

“I love you so much,” she whispered in his ear as he drank.

It brought him undone. The ragged groan that escaped him was wrought with pain and relief and joy and sadness all at once and he growled into her skin as his hips jerked and his body spasmed and came harder than he had ever come in his life.

“Fuck, I love you too,” he answered raggedly, licking the punctures on her shoulder closed and collapsing on top of her when he could manage coherent words once again.

“Don’t ever leave me,” she whispered, her arms snaking around him and holding him to her like she feared her might disappear.

“Never, love,” he promised. “I’ll never leave. Never stop loving you. Never let you go.”

He passed out before he could say more. But it was enough. It was everything.


	2. Two

Coming down off of magic was like one of those Tower-Drop rides at an amusement park. You soared and you revelled, and then suddenly you plummeted and jerked, jolting to a stop just seconds before impact and kind of cricking your neck a bit. Coming down off a Will-Be-Done spell cast by an unwitting witch, entirely by accident, felt a lot like that but also like being clubbed in the head by a troll.

So, when the spell broke and Willow’s magic released her, Buffy was jolted back to reality, and it sucked. It sucked hard. What was worse was that the come-down occurred while she happened to be straddling Spike on the floor of a filthy crypt, kissing him with all the love and devotion she’d promised him for eternity. It sucked even more that, she felt him feel the spell break too, she _felt_ the jolt that ran through him when he knew it was over and realised he was kissing her. And she felt the way both of them, for just a few more seconds, kissed harder and deeper and more passionately because any moment now all that love would have to be replaced with the hatred they truly felt.

She was kissing Spike. Spike, whom she loved. Spike, whom she loathed with every fibre of her being. Spike, whom she was supposed to want dead.

Pulling back was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. Spitting and crying out in alarm and revulsion and confusion and pain was even harder. How could this be? She could feel the hatred she’d nurtured for this creature; the disgust and revile and hatred and malice. But her heart and her soul could feel the echoes of the eternal and passionate love that just moments ago, had consumed her.

It was still there. Fading slowly, unlike the spell with its pitch-you-into-pain ceasing, but there. And she wanted it. God, she hated it. But she wanted it, too.

“Oh, god,” she whispered, scrambling off Spike and wiping viciously at her mouth.

She was confused. Hurt. Aching and terrified. She’d slept with him. And she could see the certainty of that reflected back on his horrified expression. They’d had sex. Repeatedly. He’d known her body more intimately than any other man, even Angel – hell, especially Angel – and there was no way to ever take that back. He’d bitten her. He’d drunk her blood. He’d held her and he’d loved her, rocking her and soothing her, ravishing her and hurting her just a bit when she begged.

There was no retracting that intimacy. No way to unhear the string of swears and praises that slipped from his lips when he orgasmed. No way to un-feel the throb and pulsing and warmth when he emptied himself inside of her. No way to un-taste his lips, and unhear his promises of eternal love.

There was no forgetting. No do-over. No take-backsies. No undoing what they’d done. And what was hardest was that the part of her that loved him – that had promised always to love him – was stubbornly refusing to cower before the towering hatred and disgust the rest of her knew to feel. Insisted she feel.

It stung. And it kind of ached. And it made her want to cry.

Unable to process, unable to deal, Buffy rapidly backed away, her eyes drinking in all the same things reflected in him, before she turned tail and ran all the way home to try and scrub the memories and the scent and the taste and the feel of him away.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Spike didn’t know how to process what they’d done. He didn’t exactly have a pesky soul or a conscience to contend with, so he wasn’t too concerned with guilt. But he knew pain. He knew heartache. He knew regret and he knew terror.

He’d shagged her. Buffy. The Slayer. He’d held her in his arms, and he’d kissed her sweet lips, and he’d learned the branding heat of her touch. He knew the timbre and tones as she uttered the words ‘I love you. I’ll always love you’ over and over. Husky. Breathy. Contented. Needy. Playful. Serious. He knew them all.

You’d think after more than a century on Earth, not a whole lot could touch a guy like him. But that had. She had. You could live a lifetime in a second after all, it seemed, and there was no unknowing that.

They tied him up again, given the escape attempt, but he could see that they were mostly doing it out of habit and for the sake of safety, now. Buffy didn’t say a word to him when she returned. The endless questions about the Commandos finally quieted. Red offered guilt and sincere apology, and cookies when those things didn’t quite make up for what she’d done.

And it was fine.

They could snark. Hate. Pretend it never happened. Everything would go back to normal, and just as soon as he got this chip out of his head, he’d rip her throat out and revel in the taste of her sweet blood one more time before he let her go for good. Pay her back for making him feel this way, even if she was as much a victim as him. Make her suffer for his suffering, as it were.

Except that he didn’t feel right. His head was pounding, and his vision kept blurring, and he felt like he was going to die.

“Slayer,” Spike said quietly as the day wore into night-time and the whelp and his girl snuck off to shag when Giles dozed off with a book in his lap and Red detailed Giles’ car.

“Don’t,” she warned quietly, shaking her head and refusing to look at him.

“Need you to untie me, Slayer,” Spike said thickly. “Got to get out of here.”

“And go where?” she asked, scowling and turning to face him.

“Anywhere. Somewhere dark. Down, maybe. Got to get underground.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, frowning at him.

“Something’s wrong,” Spike managed as the pain in his head intensified.

“Wrong?” she repeated. “You wanna talk about wrong? Spike, I can’t get this damn ring off my finger!”

The air stirred against his skin, bringing her sweet scent with it, and Spike forced his eyes open to find she was waving her left hand under his nose.

Upon her wedding finger rested the band he’d given her to propose. She pulled at it with her other hand, futilely trying to remove it.

“Give it,” he said, though his head ached so much that he didn’t entirely know what he was doing.

She moved her free hand, offering it to him, clearly desperate to get the ring off. And she squealed softly in surprise and disgust when he latched onto her wrist and brought her hand to his mouth, sliding her finger between his lips and biting down around the ring with his fangs.

“Stop!” she cried when he pulled on her wrist, trying to pry the ring off. “Stop! You’re going to rip my finger off.”

She yanked her hand away, scowling at the prickles of blood bubbling around the band where he’d cut her with his fangs and the metal had bitten into her.

“That was disgusting,” she informed him furiously. “You can’t just… just…”

“Like it’s the only bit of you I’ve had in my mouth, Slayer?” he asked dryly, his head aching more though the sweet taste of her blood on his tongue soothed him just a little.

“Don’t,” she repeated, her face hardening. “Just… don’t even.”

“Whatever, ducks,” he rolled his eyes. “Untie me. I’ve got to go.”

“Go where? You’re not going anywhere until I get this damn thing off my finger!” she hissed.

Spike shot her a glare, his headache worsening. Bloody hell, it felt like his brain was melting.

“It’s never coming off, Slayer,” he informed her in a hard voice.

“What do you mean? It _has_ to come off!”

“It’s an eternity ring, you bloody moron,” Spike told her. “Magic. The only way that thing comes off your finger is when your corpse decomposes in your bloody coffin, love.”

“Magic? You gave me a magic ring? You took it off _your_ finger to give it to me! What kind of magic is it?”

“It’s an eternity ring,” he repeated. “I bought it for Dru.”

“You proposed to me with your crazy ho-bag ex-lover’s ring?” Buffy asked, disgusted.

“Never gave it to her, did I?” Spike growled.

“Obviously not, otherwise she’d be the one with it stuck on her bony ass finger,” Buffy replied angrily. “What? You tried to give it to her, and she turned it down.”

“They’re called eternity rings because the harness the magic of love, Slayer,” Spike retorted. “Unfortunately, though she did in her way, Drusilla was too cracked to ever truly love anything anymore.”

“I don’t get it?”

“That your ex fucked with her mind until everything fractured, and now basic emotional control is beyond her grasp?”

“Why I can’t get it off? If it harnessed the magic of love, it would fall right off. I don’t love you.”

Spike raised his eyebrows at her.

“You did when I put it on your finger,” he said quietly. “And you did when we consummated that love over and over again. Trust me, Slayer. You’ll never get that thing off your finger. They’re designed to forever embody the love of those moments – acceptance and consummation – to remind the wearer for all eternity what they mean. What they felt, when it was put there.”

“And here it is on my finger, rather than Skank-silla’s?” Buffy challenged.

“Bought it to give to her when I left here to win her back after she dumped me,” Spike said. “Too late. Didn’t work.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Because they resize immediately to fit the wearer and never come off if love is reciprocated,” Spike shrugged, his head aching too much to care about exposing the painful truths of his end with Dru.

“And it slid right back off her finger,” Buffy sighed. “But I hate you.”

“Feeling’s mutual, pet,” Spike sighed.

“So why won’t it come off?” she asked.

“Magic,” he shrugged.

“So, magic could undo it?” she guessed. “Willow could do a spell…”

“Willow doing a spell got you into this mess,” Spike reminded her. “Willow’s spells had you moaning my name and declaring undying and eternal love for me, Slayer. Reckon the last thing anyone needs is Red trying any more spells.”

“But it has to come off,” she protested.

“It won’t,” Spike shrugged. “What’s the big deal? It’s a plain white-gold band. Not like it’s ugly or gaudy or nothin’. Be grateful I didn’t give you the skull ring instead.”

He showed her the skull shaped ring on his middle finger, and she scrunched up her nose in disgust.

“It’s not ugly, no,” she said. “But it’s yours. And it’s a reminder. And I have a boyfriend. Or… well… I went on a date, and I want to go on another one, and having a wedding band on my ring finger is kind of a damper, don’t you think?”

“Boyfriend’s not going to be too happy that you been shagging another bloke, I’d reckon,” Spike replied evenly, ignoring the strangest twinge deep down that felt a whole lot like jealousy.

“I wasn’t going to tell him… and oh, my god! Riley thinks I’m engaged. When I went to the magic shop for supplies, he caught me eyeing off wedding dresses, and I told him I was getting married,” she clutched her hair in both fists, looking panicked.

“Well, untie me before you deal with that mess, yeah?” he bargained.

“Why?” she frowned at him.

“Got to go, Slayer,” Spike said. “Got to get out. Get down. Underground. Something’s… not right…”

“Not right?” she said. “Riley thinking I’m marrying a guy called Spike is what’s not right.”

“Just untie me,” Spike said. “I’ll go. You’ll never have to see me again.”

“What about the Commandos?” Buffy frowned.

“What about them, Slayer?” Spike snarled as the pain intensified in his head. “They’re vicious and they’re violent. Hundred times worse than you. They’re snatching up demons left and right, sticking them in cages like rats and experimenting on them. They drugged me. Poked me. Prodded me. Violated me. They shoved a fucking chip in my head. Believe me, if I knew where they were, I’d have already killed them. I’ve got nothing else for you.”

“You can’t hurt people anymore, remember?” she reminded him.

“Don’t need to physically attack them and set it off to commit arson, Slayer. Can remotely detonate a bomb without triggering the damn thing,” he pointed out.

“Where are you going to go?” she asked, and praised be small mercies, she was untying him. “You can’t feed, can’t hunt, can’t fight.”

“I’ll survive,” Spike said. “Still scary enough to mug people without violence. Can buy blood. Or rob the hospital.”

“What if they come after you?”

“Now you’re worried for me, Slayer?” he taunted, rising to his feet when she’d let him loose. “Never get that ring off your finger, acting like that.”

“It might come off if I’m mean enough to you?” she asked.

Spike clutched his head, squinting as dizziness rose within him, the pain worsening.

“No,” he shrugged. “It’ll never come off. Have a nice life remembering the way it felt to have me inside you every time you look at it, baby.”

He snagged a hand around the back of her neck and tugged her close, stealing a hard kiss from her shocked and outraged lips before he dropped his hold, turned, and ran away into the night.


End file.
